Praazhm

The Praazhm are a race of tall, six-legged creatures most distinguishable by their massive bone extension covering the top of their head. They are perhaps best known for their taming of introduced, non-sapient Aurix during their long tribal era.

Weapons: A Praazhm's first line of offense is generally their venom gland, located at the end of their tail, which naturally curls underneath their belly to point forward. While not tremendously potent, it gives the Praazhm ample time to prepare for the likely event of the creature defending itself in one way or another. The second and essentially "main" line of offense is the mandibles. These are curved, sharp, and very deadly. Armed with curved barbs on the inside of the tools, the Praazhma will ravage their opponent with them, cutting deep gouges into the enemy's flesh. Coupled with their pack mentality, they can often take down a foe with little harm incurred upon themselves. While they have fallen into disuse since sapience in preference for the venom gland combined with invented weaponry, their species once preferred to charge at a foe from a distance using their dual curved tusks, which flank their set of mandibles. Once a foe was gored by one or more Praazhm, as many as possible would then surround the victim, while the rest hung back and lobbed the occasional venomous splatter into the fray.

Tools: A solitary pair of hands, located at the base of the neck. Hands are attached to the forelimbs, which are naturally carried off of the ground.

Method of Eating:Unspecified

Reproductive Rate: Sexual maturity is reached after 10 years. Can reproduce at any time of year that they wish to.

Gestation: 7.32 months then lays egg.

Offspring Incubation: 2 months until egg hatches after being laid.

Number of Offspring: 1 larva per birth. This K-Strategist design helped aid them in becoming sapient in the first place.

Offspring Survival Rate (before age of maturity): 98% -- Praazhm appear to be tremendously caring for their young, and are naturally adept at choosing great times to avoid breeding. This generally involves times such as whenever a rival tribe is expected to attack. Young are, on some occasions, left behind to fend for themselves while the entire tribe goes on a hunt only a few miles out of 'camp'. Taking a full compliment of Praazhm, while dangerous to the existing larvae, allows the Praazhmi people to return very quickly and with low circumstances of loss of life. Eventually, the Praazhm began domesticating the local Aurix population, using the huge brutes to guard their tribe while they were away. Amazingly, these Aurix were so properly domesticated, the eating of larvae by Aurix pet was a very rare event.

While the Praazhm are opportunistic predators, there are a few species which they prefer to feed from. Praazhm do not believe in feeding off of the young, believing it best to take them as sustenance once they are 'of age'.

The ancestors of the Praazhm arrived on their homeworld of Skozarius via panspermia, having survived orbital entry while cryogenically hibernated due to being deep within the meteorite itself. Their known ancestors proceed as follows:

Unfortunately, nothing is truly known about the Praazhmi aquatic evolutionary tree at this time. Xenobiologists and Xenopaleontologists are currently diligently at work trying to uncover clues to the full history of the Praazhm and their "past selves". While a number of species had to exist to allow them to adapt to the level they reached, only one is currently referred to:

Originally, the Praazhm were suspected to have evolved from the somewhat abundant Bowlegga species - however, this has turned out not to be the case. Bowleggas were a distant relative of the actual ancestors of their lineage, but had split early in the cellular history of the planet, and then having led to a parallel evolution.

By the time the Praazhm had built themselves a tribal grounds, there were already several other species out there who had also reached sapience and begun cultivating a civilization. Of these, it was the Murfin who were the most abundant. Murfins lived off of fish and therefore lived along the shorelines. They had possessed a tribal culture for at least a few centuries by the time that the Praazhm officially came around (although it was the Praazhm who first discovered to cultivate fire), and they had already split into several cultural personalities. At first, they were neutral to the rising creatures who would one day rule the planet, and thanks to this the Praazhm were able to sway one tribe to become their allies. While it was this gesture that cemented the Praazhm into the history books thanks to the swapping of technologies (with the Murfin obtaining fire cultivation and the Praazhm receiving plans for fishing spears), another nearby Murfin tribe saw this as an ill omen of times to come. Their chieftain, Palier, soon declared war upon the budding tribe and set out to destroy them, insisting that the spirits had spoke to him and warned him of their species' impending doom due directly to the Praazhm.

Palier's tribe.

At first, all the Praazhm could do was defend themselves from the bloodthirsty amphibianoids, and all seemed bleak as soon after the first attack by the vicious tribe, another nearby tribe of sapients - the Marshwatchers - saw this as an opportunity to further their own development, and also declared war on the Praazhm. With his people becoming ever-fearful for their lives, the current chieftain decided the only sane choice was to fight back. With that, he began stock-piling food, and ordered the first mass breeding their species had ever seen. Within a matter of 15 years, the tribe was ready to bring the fight to the Murfins, the first whom had attacked them. The last 15 years had been harsh on the Murfin tribe however, and sending his own people in against the defensive Praazhm had cost Palier nearly all of his citizens. Being the only male left, he was in the process of personally repopulating his tribe with his harem of females the night that the tusked invaders struck.

Murfin chieftain Palier meets his demise, and the destruction of his entire tribe.

The battle was a short one; at first Palier attempted to rouse his females into grabbing axes along with him, but they were too afraid of the large, tusked invaders, whom Palier had continuously spoke of becoming their species' destroyer. Realizing he would have to face the entire tribe alone, he could not handle the idea, and cowardly tried to flee with his life. While initially he planned to grab a spear before leaving camp to either decimate their own camp in their absence or to slowly work his way to the "heretical" Murfin tribe who had sided with these tusked demons, a shot of venom to his backside caused him to panic, and instead he tried to flee without it. Unfortunately for him, his webbed feet only managed to hinder his process of escape, and the venomous strikes had seeped into his system. By the time he reached the outskirts of the camp, he collapsed. Surrounded by his sworn enemies, he was in no shape to fight back when the Praazhmi chieftain abruptly ended his existence. By morning, Palier's harem was in possession of the more complacent Murfin tribe, and Palier's tribe was considered destroyed. With no one to hinder them, Chief _____ took two of his people with him to explore the ruins of the site at their leisure. It was during this time that they discovered a tattered tent, filled with spears. With an equivalent to a smile, the chieftain had these taken back to their campsite, and reverse-engineered into a new Praazhm weapon of war: throwing spears.

4,575,000,000 AS: The Thornjetter arrives on land. Likely evolved close to this time period.

4,621,000,000 AS: Thornjetters and Bowlegga form a symbiotic bond, protecting one another from predators.

4,634,000,000 AS: Niggatron species goes extinct due to Thornjetter intervention.

4,634,000,000 AS: Thornjetters grow larger brains, becoming a new species, although they look identical on the outside. Original Thornjetters go extinct due to being outcompeted by their own, more brainy, descendants.

4,716,000,000 AS: Tuskflyers evolve. This was the first known ancestor of the Praazhm to have adapted wings capable of limited flight capacities. Intelligent Thornjetters go extinct soon after.

4,735,000,000 AS: Tuskflyers, having remained symbiotically linked to the still-surviving Bowlegga, begin a symbiotic relationship with creatures known as Speedies.

4,779,000,000 AS: Phineys, a species of cycloptic, land-dwelling ichthyoids, go extinct due to Tuskflyer intervention.

4,833,000,000 AS: Spikey-Sperm species goes extinct due to Tuskflyer intervention.

4,906,000,000 AS: Stiltflyers evolve. Much larger than their ancestors, they are far more capable of taking care of themselves. While symbiotic reliance on the Bowleggas and Speedies dissipates, the two 'lower' species continue to garner aid from their now-larger "friends"; protecting these two species has long since become ingrained into the brains of the Stiltflyers' lineage. Tuskflyers go extinct soon after.

4,987,000,000 AS: Stiltflyers grow larger brain cavities like the Thornjetters before them, and in a similar way to the Thornjetters, the Stiltflyers give way to a far more intelligent subspecies, while the original subspecies goes extinct.

5,131,000,000 AS: Spineflyers evolve. They are the first of the lineage to begin to grow calcified growths on their bodies, a trait that would become a very prominent and even distinguishing feature of their sapient descendants. Stiltflyers go extinct soon after.

5,136,000,000 AS: Narhinos go extinct due to Spineflyer intervention.

5,278,000,000 AS: The Krugg, a race of large insectoids, go extinct due to Spineflyer intervention. Amazingly enough, surviving populations continued to emerge well into the Praazhm's tribal era, likely hinting at their having been placed there from another world by extraskozarestrial visitors.

5,534,000,000 AS: The Praatusk evolve. They are the first "upright walking" quadrupedal species borne from this lineage, and are largely considered the very first "modern" ancestor of the Praazhm. Spineflyers go extinct soon after.

5,543,000,000 AS: Duroli go extinct due to Praatusk intervention.

5,586,000,000 AS: Praatusks grow larger brain cavities in a trend that seemed to have followed their lineage for some time. As with all other occasions, the less-intelligent Praatusk subspecies (aka the original strain) go extinct within only a relatively short number of generations.

5,693,000,000 AS: Praasprinter evolve. They are similar to their ancestors, but have adapted to become better sprinters. Their markings change as well to distinguish themselves from their ancestors, who do not go extinct immediately.

5,693,075,032 AS: The very last of the Praatusks finally die out, leaving their species extinct.

5,737,000,000 AS: The Glurbs, a species brought from another world by a mysterious extraskozarestrial race, go extinct on this planet (but not other planets such as their homeworld) due to Praasprinter intervention.

5,994,000,000 AS: The Praazhm form their first tribe after the discovery of fire by a smart member of a small cluster. He is made chieftain after this, and his immediate descendants would carry his name for several million years.

The Praazhm were created only a few months after the Aurix themselves were while brainstorming for alien names upon the creation of the Aurixan Chapter 2. However, it was very quickly established that no mental images would be associated with the species, and that instead it would be the first creature Somarinoa played in Spore, allowing him to not worry about getting a creature correct, and instead enjoy the game and have fun with the physics and everything else.

The Praazhm used domesticated Aurix during their tribal era to guard their tribal grounds while away on errands.

It was not originally intended for the Praazhm to necessarily have anything to do with the Aurix -- this is where the game stepped in the way. It chose to include the Aurix in the Praazhmi tribal era, and how could the creator not use them as his domesticated animals?